With his guilty pleas to both
racketeering and drug conspiracy, Gondo faces as much as 40 years in
prison — the longest maximum penalty of the eight indicted officers.

With a thick beard and wearing the bright orange jumpsuit of a
detention center, Gondo listened as U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake
read the accusations against him. In the racketeering case, he was
accused o­f committing eight robberies from March 2015 to July 2016.

“These
guys in this Gun Trace Task Force, who are out there every day putting
their lives on the line, they’re down in the dirt to be successful,”
Brown said. “Sometimes that mindset rubs off and carries into areas it
probably shouldn’t.”

Gondo
and the other indicted officers were members of the Gun Trace Task
Force, an elite plainclothes unit deployed to interrupt Baltimore’s
illegal gun trade. The scandal involving the task force led Police
Commissioner Kevin Davis earlier this yearto end plainclothes policing in Baltimore, saying the style encouraged officers to cut corners. He also disbanded the gun unit.

Prosecutors
say they have been forced to drop criminal charges against more than
100 people whose cases hinged on the word of the eight officers.

Detective
Jemell Rayam pleaded guilty Tuesday to racketeering. Detectives Evodio
Hendrix and Maurice Ward both pleaded guilty in July. The three men and
Gondo await sentencing next year.

Federal prosecutors, meanwhile,
are pressing forward with criminal cases against Sgts. Thomas Allers and
Wayne Jenkins and Detectives Daniel Hersl and Marcus Taylor. The four
men have pleaded not guilty. Their trials are scheduled to begin in
January.

The drug case, in which Gondo also pleaded guilty, begins
Monday in federal court. Five civilians from Baltimore are charged with
running the heroin ring that reached as far as Baltimore and Harford
counties.

While
searching a bedroom in March 2015, Gondo uncovered a stash of money and
pocketed at least $8,000. He admitted to the crime with his guilty plea.

Four
months later, he robbed another home, taking an unknown amount of cash,
then went to Mother's Federal Hill Grille to divide the money with
other officers from his unit, Gondo admitted Thursday.

In February
2016, he searched a woman’s bedroom alongside other officers, put her
in handcuffs and robbed her of $7,000. Gondo, Rayam and Allers split the
cash afterward, according to his plea.

Gondo also admitted to
stopping a car four months later in Dickeyville, traveling with Rayam
and Jenkins to the driver’s home and stealing a 9 mm handgun and a pound
of marijuana. Gondo arranged for a drug dealer he knew to buy the gun
and marijuana, splitting the money with Rayam, he admitted.

He also pulled over
Ronald and Nancy Hamilton from Carroll County in July 2016. Ronald
Hamilton has twice served federal prison sentences for drug convictions.
Rayam asked him, “Where’s the money?” He had $3,400 in cash, which
Rayam stole.

Next, the officers drove to the couple’s home and
stole $20,000 in cash from the closet. They went to a bar and split the
money, Gondo admitted with his plea.

Nancy Hamilton has sued the
officersin Baltimore Circuit Court for $900,000. Other victims say
they’ve hired lawyers, too. Several other lawsuits already have been
filed against members of the Gun Trace Task Force, said Andre Davis, the
Baltimore solicitor. City officials, he said, are bracing for many more."